"Behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken more than the fat of rams.

- 1 Sam.15 v 22

Tyler Perry's new film Temptation has a plot that - while audiences may able to predict the demise of the Jurnee Smollett character - is a cautionary tale. We ignore signposts, we readjust our thinking, we even violate natural laws for our own pleasure. Why not just obey? Too passé for some?

"Jeffrey Harris, the same day he was released from prison, got behind the wheel of a car when he had no valid license, and caused a major traffic crash, hurting several people and killing a 20-year-old woman," said Sheriff Grady Judd said in a statement to News Chief in Winter Haven, Fl on March 22. "Traffic laws are no different than any other laws we have in place - they are there for a reason - to keep people safe."

Therein lies the root of our struggle with problems and difficulties, the ''genesis'' of all our troubles. This matter of obedience is the primary cause of our inability to achieve the right goals and dreams, unfold our true purpose and display the reason why we were created.

You will and must obey something or someone. Daily you will encounter and must deal with spiritual laws, physical laws, natural laws, scientific laws, rules, regulations, norms and customs. Your survival depends on how you relate to each and every one in every circumstance.

Since every action has a reaction, every deed results in a consequence, every day you find yourself on the horns of a dilemma.

Do you listen to and obey:

the voice in your head,

the voice in your spirit,

the deafening voice from the outside,

or do you obey God or man?

You must discern and learn quickly the lessons of obedience.

I realize we admire or - at least - find very intriguing and attractive the rugged individualist who boldly declares:

"I do it may way.

No one tells me what to do.

I am my own man."

But no one is totally free. Everyone has boundaries, he or she should not cross, everyone is limited by some restriction that he or she must observe.

So do you, in your independent liberated sense of mind with the "don't care" attitude:

• ignore the red light at the intersection,
• disregard the sign that says,"danger, high voltage",
• pay no attention to the lifeguard warning about rip currents,
• disrespect all customs of native culture in a foreign country,
• breathe in and do not breathe out
• casually dismiss the stick of dynamite with the lit fuse in your hand?

Common sense, in the very least, demands that you follow certain protocols or risk serious injury or death.

Life can be very unforgiving and harsh with disobedient children. Indeed, it is easier and far less costly to obey the rules, thus preventing a problem than trying to repair or correct a situation after engaging in disobedience. Retribution, redemption and restoration are extremely expensive enterprises.

Just ask the Son who shamefully suffered on Calvary's cross.

Therefore, not obeying your parents, teachers, pastors, policemen or judges, often times lands you in a "hell" of a mess - from which you find it extremely difficult to extricate yourself.

Laws and rules do not exist to make your life difficult and unpleasant. They are there to ensure a civilized well-ordered society where everyone has a reasonable expectation of safety, security, happiness and well-being.

The Ten Commandments are not a "killjoy" list of burdensome suggestions. They are mandates from an all-knowing, ever-loving father who has our best interests at heart.

His desire and aim for us is that we live a healthy and prosperous life on this earth and a supremely joyous one in the age to come: "Trust and obey for there is no other way to be happy with Jesus," are more than mere words in a hymnal, but a prescription for a successful existence.

Just ask the single, never married baby mother in the ghetto, who has recently lost her job, about to lose her food stamps, and facing eviction.

Just ask the teenage murderer charged as an adult, now realizing he is going to spend the rest of his natural life in prison.

Just ask that promiscuous young person dying of AIDS in a bleak and dreary hospital.

If they had a second chance, would they listen? Without exception, they would reply, I would be more careful, compliant and obedient to sound principles the next time.

They, now fully understand, what God meant when He said, "Thou shalt not."

Ignore that stubborn, hard headed, reckless maverick who proudly drives around town with the bumper sticker that reads,"I am so bad that heaven does not want me and hell is afraid, I'll take over."

He will find out that life is more than a catchy slogan or pithy phrase and the devil does not joke.

Satan is salivating, licking his chops, anxiously awaiting meeting him in the place with that ominous statement above the portal, "abandon hope all ye who enter here."

Soon and " too late," he will discover to his eternal regret that everyone, someday, somewhere must bend the knee, submit, obey and concede to somebody, "thy will be done" or else-------------!

V. Knowles is a husband and father with an interest in penning issues that serve to uplift mankind. He melds his love for Classic literature, The Bible and pop culture - as sordid as it may be - into highly relatable columns of truth, faith and justice. Hence the name: Just Thinking. If he's not buried in a book or penning his next column, you may find him pinned to his sectional watching a good old Country and Western flick.